what america was made of. so earth seems to work quite well. water, the early american settlers from east coast largely got into the interior of the country by going up the river, the susquehanna and potomac and hudson. after 40 or 50 or 80 miles inland all of them found rapids and whirlpools and settled counts in places like richmond and fredericksburg and washington d.c. and albany. once they establish those settlements, trade goods down from the mountains, they build the early canals, perfected the business of building canals and started building more obviously commercial canals, not simply a round rapids in new hampshire which effectively created boston as a city of commerce, ports in new england. the most important of all american canals, the erie canal in albany which make new york the center of commerce that it is today, chicago to the mississippi river, illinois, michigan canal and chicago canal, hugely important in allowing congress to go through the audience. and a catalyst asian and control and cont